Last weekend, Sue and I went to a workshop at the Michigan Friends Center near Chelsea, Michigan. It was called Living Lightly, and it fit us because have both been involved with sustainability efforts, and because I have wanted to get out to the Friends Center, having been born in Iowa and raised a Quaker. I’m not much of a singer myself, but one of the features of the day involves singing an old Shaker tune, written by Elder Joseph in 1848, entitled “Simple Gifts.” The lyrics go like this:

“Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free,
‘tis the gift to come down where you ought to be.
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
We shall bow and bend, we shan’t be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.”

The workshop was centered on the idea of sustainability and of the things that individuals can do to help reverse the long held idea that the economy, rather than the environment, is the driving force for society. And it touched on the elusive idea of spiritual life. As many of these things go, there was a keynote address, large group and small group discussions, and we wrote things on big pieces of newsprint that got stuck to the wall for everyone to see. Wisely, the organizers avoided the “facilitated session” trap of having us vote for our favorites. It was more internally focused, letting us come away with what each of us, personally gained from the day.

Like grains of sand forming a beach, a million little things are what will change the world. Nothing really “new” came out of this day, only an affirmation of many little things we already knew that are not only good for the environment, but can be personally satisfying:

• Know where your food comes from by buying it locally or growing it yourself.
• Conserve heating fuel, in the winter close off rooms that aren’t needed.
• Use alternative energies like solar or wind, if at all possible.
• Turn of or unplug things when you aren’t using them.
• Minimize driving and don’t be in such a hurry.
• Instead of buying all the stuff you need, share with neighbors.
• If you focus on what it truly important to you, you can live simply and with satisfaction.

Now wait a minute! Simplicity, share with neighbors, close off unused rooms, use windmills? Is this starting sound familiar? It seems to me that this is how my family used to live when we weren’t expecting to have more and more every year. I know it’s how my grandma and grandpa lived, and how Sue’s mom, Bee, lives to this day. Many of the things in the list epitomize the country life, the community life that we have lost as things started turning faster and faster, and we started borrowing beyond our needs to have what we thought was the next best thing. It sounds a lot like the Quaker principles that sustain me even to this day, even though I have drifted away from the church itself.

The recent financial meltdown has forced many of us to re-evaluate, to turn back to knowledge we have buried for some time. We knew we had lost something, but perhaps we are finally realizing what it is we need to turn back to. Perhaps we are rediscovering what a gift it is to be simple, to be free. And could it be that by turning, turning, we will finally come round right?

Sue’s mother has lived in her Civil War era farmhouse since 1942. About to celebrate her 93^rd birthday, Bee is bright and interested and still calls to brag when the first tomato appears in her garden, or when she counts an unusually large number of turkeys out in the field. The farmhouse has a 5-acre yard, ten acres of woodlot, another five in fence rows and creek bank, and 20 acres of prime southeast Michigan farmland. Although it may not be considered the most aesthetically beautiful plot of land, it is relatively well drained, with soils ranging from sandy loam to loamy clay and it has been highly productive in terms of cropland year-in and year-out.

Bee has lived through a lot during her life on this land. She watched a world war unfold, welcoming her husband Bill back from combat in the artillery division of the Army – after he won two Bronze Stars in the process. She and Bill raised their daughter Sue in this house; raising cows, crops and dogs, even while Bill traveled around the country in order to make enough money from construction jobs to keep food on the table.

The war ended and the back 10 acres were converted to pasture for the cattle. At one point, Bill planted a stand of pine trees with the intention of selling Christmas trees at a discount for those who didn’t have much money. Some of those trees are still growing today.

Bee got very involved in politics, initially working for the Republican Party. Her collection of political buttons is a fascinating mix of history: Women make Policy, Not Coffee; Au H₂O for President; Ed Brooke for VP; Nixon’s the One! Bee Lackey, Chair, Van Buren County GOP; A Woman’s Place is in the House, and the Senate; Bush Quayle ’88; Read My Lips! Buchanan ’92; Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican; Pachyderm Power; IKE; Perot for President ’92; Alternate ’76 RNC, Kansas City, MO; Now More than Ever - Nixon; and many more.

She has outlived her husband and most of her friends. Through it all, she has watched the land, and been renewed by it. It has been farmed since she moved in, and every year the crop comes in – sometimes beans, sometimes corn, occasionally barley or wheat. A bomb was dropped in Japan and that fall the crop came in; a President resigned and that fall the crop came in; a man walked on the moon and that fall the crop came in; a President was assassinated, another war started, a wall fell, the stock market crashed; tsunamis, volcanoes, hurricanes occurred, and every year the crop came in. In enduring tribute to the American farmer and to the land itself, every spring there was a planting and every fall there was a harvest.

The woods endured as well. Drain tiles failed in the field and the woods got wetter, but while some walnut trees died from the wetness, hickories rose to take their place. The deer herd thrived along with the turkeys, oblivious to events around the world.

When Sue and I go out for a weekend, we love to visit with Bee – to talk about politics, people, wildlife and the weather – but we also go to walk through the woods and fields and take another mental snapshot of the enduring qualities of the land. In a world that is ever-changing and turbulent, there is something calming and reassuring about the enduring cycle of birth and renewal that you can experience from the land. We come away having renewed the one piece of rock-solid knowledge that is deeply ingrained in Bee’s understanding of the world, and that we can all take refuge in during uncertain times.

The crop will come in.

In the country, we see a lot more open sky, so we experience storms in a much more dramatic way than we ever did in the City. I’m a little tired as I write this, because the other night my dog Chili slept on my chest half the night. She’s an Aussie mix and is deathly afraid of thunderstorms. When this trait began to develop, I thought she was reacting to what she thought were sounds from a big bad skydog whose growling voice fills the heavens and who could only be seen by its bright flashing teeth. It must be intimidating to experience an enemy who surrounds you yet remains unseen.

Then I began to realize that she would often flip out long before either Sue or I had any inclination that a storm was coming. Sometimes, she would go over the top even when no storm occurred, only to find out later that a storm had passed by many miles away. This tends to reinforce the idea that one reason for the fear is the static charge and pressure fluctuation that storms create.

After a little research, I discovered that a lot of dogs develop a fear of storms. Apparently one study has indicated that certain breeds may be more likely to develop such fears, including some working and sporting breeds. Fortunately, Chili seems to only have some of the mildest symptoms: climbing onto Sue or myself, panting, trembling, and pacing. Apparently some dogs hide, defecate, chew, bark, drool, or try to escape through screens, walls, doors, or windows.

There are a lot of cautions on how to handle these fears, because once they develop, they tend to get worse. Our tendency is to provide comfort and reassurance, but it turns out that if you carry that too far it tends to reward the dog for its fearful behavioral and can actually exacerbate the problem. A better approach may be to play with the dog or actually go outside to reinforce the idea that it’s no big deal, or to go to a “safe place” such as a room with no windows, to minimize the stimulation. Eventually, the dog will go there on its own when a storm occurs, and will have a safe place when you’re not around.

A friend of mine told me that her dogs always jump in the bathtub, which supports the idea of static charge, since the porcelain won’t conduct and the piping will ground any static charge that occurs.

The other thing that comes highly recommended is Rescue Remedy, a homeopathic mix of floral essences and melatonin. A couple of sprays on the tongue generally calms Chili down, and if she still insists on climbing on top of me, sometimes I can go to sleep anyway by using it on myself.

I’m curious as to what others have experienced. What kind of behaviors have you seen, under what situations? Have you tried something that works well? Or have you figured out a way to sleep through it? 

I’d love to hear your feedback on this one.